This book is designed for anyone who needs to know how to apply information technology within an organisation. It employs the viewpoint of a business manager but the same outlook is applicable to any student of this new range of skills. The aim is to give a perspective on the whole field, as well as to deal with specific topics that affect all who are involved with computers.
This is not to be a catalogue of specific skills and disciplines needed by those who plan to manage a computer installation. The focus is on a few key areas that do not form part of a normal business syllabus. Some managers will be better placed than others for such a task. A business analyst, for example, will already know most of the techniques.
The aim of this overview is to introduce several important computing concepts rather than to cover the history of computing as such. It will also provide illustrations of how equipment and techniques evolved as much by accident as by design. Newcomers can do a useful job by asking why they have to put up with the numerous aggravations that are still part of computing.
Just as the word ‘hardware’ can cover items as diverse as a printer or a piece of wire, the word ‘software’ covers an equally wide range of items. If hardware is everything to do with a computer that you can touch, software covers everything else that a system needs before it starts to do useful work. This is not intended as a definition but as you read this chapter you will discover the many dimensions of software and the boundaries between them.
In the same way in which it is possible to drive a car without an understanding of how it works, so too it is possible to operate a computer without any knowledge of how it functions. Provided you know where to insert the disks and which buttons to press, the machine will run.
The justification of expenditure on a computer system is not straightforward, nor is it easy to know at what stage to make it. In spite of the difficulties, it is an exercise that must be undertaken.
A standard package is produced when the way in which a job is done does not vary from one office to another. Word processing is the best example of this. Where a new type of job that is specific to computer technology is developed, a standard package can also be produced. Spreadsheet calculators are an example of this. No standard package covers the whole area of finance; diversity of trade and office procedures ensure that scores of packages are produced. Each one works in a different way when it comes to price structures or payment procedures.
The first point to make about the so-called ‘office of the future’ is that you cannot buy one. It is impossible to buy one because it is not, and never will be, a single package and also because a significant part of the futuristic office consists of sophisticated human beings, and they are not for sale.
